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ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro vs. nVidia GeForce 9400M

Well the only game i play is guild wars and I am currently using an outdated p4 rig with an x1650 pro in it so although the 20" i am getting doesn't have any "future proofing" for any possible games i may play later on (though not likely) it isn't one of my large concerns.

Instead i'll be watching the price of 4gb SO-DIMMS carefully. The 8gb of ram option in the future should be helpful to vmware.
 
wdc-sam said:
Therefore I've just got hold of the 'old one' £180 cheaper than a brand new one (whats a £ worth these days anyway:) ). So not only have I saved myself some cash I'm thinking I've got myself a better machine??

These deals are out there and mine came with warranty!
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hi wdc-sam, where did you find this deal please?
 
PurpleCliff said:
The New 20-inch: 2.66GHz with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
or
The Old 20-inch 2.66GHz TI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
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The Radeon card in the now discontinued iMac is definitely better for now, but it may not be once Snow Leopard is released. Apparently it has been having problems with builds of Snow Leopard, and maybe someone could confirm this or not because I would like to know for sure.
 
KissStephanie said:
The Radeon card [...]apparently is having problems with builds of Snow Leopard, and maybe someone could confirm this or not because I would like to know for sure.
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According the the latest SL build revealed today, it seems like all the Nvidia chipsets are having a bad time:

# Hibernation is not working on machines with Nvidia graphics cards and will result in a frozen machine.
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hi for a daily use.so internet, imovie, iphoto

what is the real difference between the new imac 24 with 9400M, 4 gb drr3, 2,66Ghz and the old imac 24 radeon 2600XT 2gb drr2 2,8Ghz?

and in the future with snowleopard what does the best choice?
 
Parental said:
hi for a daily use.so internet, imovie, iphoto

what is the real difference between the new imac 24 with 9400M, 4 gb drr3, 2,66Ghz and the old imac 24 radeon 2600XT 2gb drr2 2,8Ghz?

and in the future with snowleopard what does the best choice?
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I seriously doubt you'd see any difference in performance between the two in what you are doing. I think that the consensus on here (if there is such a thing) is that the 2400XT<9400M<2600XT, so you're between the old entry level GPU and the old mid-range GPU. If you started doing gaming you may begin to see the differences side-by-side.

Similarly, the slightly slower processor will be aided by DDR3 vs. the old DDR2. If you were doing a lot of movie rendering you may begin to see the differences, if even noticeable. Getting an additional 2GB of RAM is worth about $40 in street value (you can buy 4GB of DDR2 for $50 and sell the old 2GB on eBay for $10). You get twice the HDD which is nice.

Right now the Apple store has the 24"/2.8/2600PRO on clearance for $1399. You can find them online for probably even less at other resellers. Or you can go refurb for $1199 and possibly get a brand new one. I just got a 20"/2.66 refurb and there is nothing about it that would suggest it was used.

You could say that the newer one is more future proof, as it has DDR3 and can handle up to 8GB. It may even perform better over time if Apple begins to take advantage of the DDR3.
 
mudenza said:
Wrong. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/607076/



Thats how I look at it. The 9600M is twice as fast as a 2600 Pro, but thats at 1440x900, not at 1900x2000. Furthermore, ATI just does the pro apps better.
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That was using the old iMac with the ddr2 running at 667Mhz ram.

The one comparing is the early 2008 iMac model, which according to apple site, on the spec, it is running on 1066Mhz Ram. Now if you could point me where to find a single 4gig module that runs on 800Mhz, or PC2-8500, that would be a treat.
 
tbwtech said:
hi wdc-sam, where did you find this deal please?
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Apple store uk. Right hand column towards the bottom is the Refurb Store. Ordered it Friday night arrived Monday Morning, not a scratch on it, no indications whatsoever of prior use. Simply superb. I am a happy happy man working on a lovely machine!
 
The 2600 Pro lies somewhere in between a 7600GT and an 8600 IIRC (probably a bit closer to the 7600). If that give you a better idea.
 
I benchmarked two machines which I've owned.

A 2.4GHz iMac from late 2007 which has the Radeon 2600 and a unibody MacBook 2.0GHz with the 9400m.

The iMac gave 3887 3DMark06 Marks, while the MacBook only gave 2183.
 
John.B said:
I'm on-the-fence with this exact same issue.

Currently the Refurbished iMac 24-inch 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with the 9400M and 4GB RAM w/ 640GB HDD is going for the same $1299 in the USA refurb store as the Refurbished iMac 24-inch 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO and 2GB RAM (easily updated to 4GB) w/ 500GB HDD.

Maybe we'll find out more about SL and OpenCL support for the older video cards at WWDC?
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Wow im in the EXACT same position as you. Same dilemma. Which one should I go for :-S???
 
GadgetAddicted said:
Wow im in the EXACT same position as you. Same dilemma. Which one should I go for :-S???
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It doesn't seem like all of the older-ish ATI cards are going to get the same level of support for OpenGL that the NVIDIA cards are getting in Snow Leopard. The supported OpenCL video cards in Snow Leopard* right now are:
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.
* ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

Also, only the NVIDIA 9400M will have hardware acceleration support for H.264 video decoding, though you could make the case that faster video cards with dedicated memory don't need it as much as the Macs with integrated video.

Obviously any of this can change before SL ships (IOW they could add support for more ATI video cards), but I'm pretty sure my next iMac will be a refurb 24-inch 2.66GHz C2D 9400M; and the current mini only comes with the 9400M integrated graphics anyway. As always, YMMV.

* Accurate as of 2009-06-15; permalink not available for that support page.
 
John.B said:
It doesn't seem like all of the older-ish ATI cards are going to get the same level of support for OpenGL that the NVIDIA cards are getting in Snow Leopard. The supported OpenCL video cards in Snow Leopard* right now are:
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.
* ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

Also, only the NVIDIA 9400M will have hardware acceleration support for H.264 video decoding, though you could make the case that faster video cards with dedicated memory don't need it as much as the Macs with integrated video.

Obviously any of this can change before SL ships (IOW they could add support for more ATI video cards), but I'm pretty sure my next iMac will be a refurb 24-inch 2.66GHz C2D 9400M; and the current mini only comes with the 9400M integrated graphics anyway. As always, YMMV.

* Accurate as of 2009-06-15; permalink not available for that support page.
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Don't all current Macs have the same 9400m chipset, meaning that they all technically have the 9400m?
 
PurrBall said:
Don't all current Macs have the same 9400m chipset, meaning that they all technically have the 9400m?
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I think the GeForce GT 120 and GT 130 are "standalone" and don't have the dual 9400M chipset. Damned nice video cards for an iMac, though. :)

That's just for the MBs/MBPs/MBAs/iMacs/minis, I'm pretty sure the Mac Pros are in their own league. :cool:
 
From what I can tell, the older dedicated ATI cards already support hardware acceleration, especially for HD work. So I think open CL isn't as important for them. Anyone have other thoughts or information?

John.B said:
It doesn't seem like all of the older-ish ATI cards are going to get the same level of support for OpenGL that the NVIDIA cards are getting in Snow Leopard. The supported OpenCL video cards in Snow Leopard* right now are:
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.
* ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

Also, only the NVIDIA 9400M will have hardware acceleration support for H.264 video decoding, though you could make the case that faster video cards with dedicated memory don't need it as much as the Macs with integrated video.

Obviously any of this can change before SL ships (IOW they could add support for more ATI video cards), but I'm pretty sure my next iMac will be a refurb 24-inch 2.66GHz C2D 9400M; and the current mini only comes with the 9400M integrated graphics anyway. As always, YMMV.
Click to expand...
 
Sirmausalot said:
From what I can tell, the older dedicated ATI cards already support hardware acceleration, especially for HD work. So I think open CL isn't as important for them. Anyone have other thoughts or information?
Click to expand...
OpenCL isn't about about hardware acceleration for HD video. That's a different beast.

OpenCL allows properly written applications to make use of the horsepower inside the GPU of your supported video card as a kind of additional CPU core (or cores).

AFAICT, ATI (and its parent AMD) was on board with this technology before NVIDIA. So I'm not sure why Snow Leopard doesn't have OpenCL support for more than just the two ATI cards.

What I do know is that I'd like whatever budget-priced Mac (iMac 24-inch 2.66GHz C2D, mini, whatever) that I buy next to have support for both OpenCL and H.264 hardware video decoding. If only as a hedge against the inevitable obsolescence.
 
Thanks!

Great thread! I was trying to make the same decision and actually went with the refurb 2.8 for the same reason. I read this thread after the fact but feel better about my decision now.

Thanks
 
personal experience

Hi Everybody!

I´m reading Macrumors and Forums a few years now, and decided to register today...

I use the first aluminium iMac (20" 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM with the HD 2600 Pro) as my private machine, and a unibody Macbook (2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM and the 9400m) at work and on the go.

Startup Time, application performance and "snappiness" is better on the Macbook, maybe because the installation is newer (both run 10.5.7, both have 7k hd drives), maybe because of the faster DDR3 RAM. But in games the iMac crushes the Macbook: COD4 is playable on the uMB, but on the iMac its really smooth and fast, i even did crysis on the imac and it was definately playable. Not so on the MB..

I would only consider the 9400m for very light gaming, left4dead for example runs nicely.

The HD2600 Pro is definately faster in comparable environments.
That said, if you are a serious gamer you get the best bang for the buck with a refurbished 24" iMac with the 8800GS.
 
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